U.S. Pat. No. 3,079,096, entitled "Crushing Apparatus" issued Feb. 26, 1963 to David P. McConnell, father of one of the inventors herein. The crusher described and claimed in that patent is particularly representative of the prior art with respect to the present invention and is accordingly discussed in greater detail below. The jaw crusher of the present invention includes certain features in common with the apparatus of the above patent and also in common with a copending application, Ser. No. 06/943,552 entitled "Improved Jaw Crusher with Multiple Drive Means" and filed Dec. 18, 1986 by David P. McConnell, one of the inventors herein.
Accordingly, both U.S. Pat. No. 3,079,096 and the copending application referred to above are incorporated herein as though set forth in their entirety in order to provide a more complete understanding of the present invention particularly as to common crushing apparatus features.
The crushing apparatus of the present invention also includes certain features in common with apparatus disclosed in another copending patent application, Ser. No. 06/823,309 filed Jan. 28, 1986 by David P. McConnell, one of the inventors herein, entitled "Jaw Crushing Apparatus" and now assigned to the assignee of the present invention. Accordingly, that copending and commonly owned reference is also incorporated herein as though set forth in its entirety.
Referring now to the incorporated references, U.S. Pat. No. 3,079,096 disclosed a jaw crusher of the type generally referred to above wherein an eccentric mass was supported for rotation behind each of its opposed jaws. Substantial forces acting upon the jaws were absorbed by resilient means including wheels with pneumatic tires arranged in shoes or cylindrical tracks. In addition to absorbing tremendous shock loading on the jaws, the resilient tires permitted the jaws to move away from each other as necessary when uncrushable material formed, for example, from hardened steel or the like, entered between the jaws.
Accordingly, the jaw crusher of the reference was particularly effective in crushing materials such as rock while preventing the jaws or other portions of the crusher from being damaged by uncrushable material passing between the jaws.
Other jaw crushers including opposed vibratory jaws operated by rotating eccentric masses have also been disclosed in the prior art. For example, reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 1,247,701 issued Nov. 27, 1917 to Michaelsen. However, at least for purposes of the present invention, these other prior art jaw crushers are believed to be generally equivalent to that of the above incorporated reference.
Although the prior art jaw crushers discussed above were very effective for their purpose, it has been found desirable to further improve their design for further enhancing jaw crusher operation in a variety of applications.
In particular, it has been found that assembly and disassembly is relatively difficult for such crushers with opposed jaws. This is most noticeable in connection with the jaws themselves which tend to experience substantial wear during operation of the crusher and must accordingly be replaced or rebuilt relatively frequently.
Accordingly, there has been found to remain a need for a jaw crusher exhibiting improvements in the areas discussed above as well as in other areas.